Literary Analysis of The Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Creative work is merely an echo of life. Many forms of art are inspired by the events that take place in the real world. The experimental novel, Pale Fire, written by Vladimir Nabokov, describes the many ambiguities of John Shades life viewed in perspective from the commentator Kinbote. Kinbote is a professor at Wordsmith College in New Wye along with John Shade, who is the author of the poem “Pale Fire”. Kinbote claims himself to be the exiled King Charles of his beloved homeland of Zembla, a distant northern land paralleling the present word. Although Shade may have had different intentional meanings for his poem, Kinbote claims the premise surrounding “Pale Fire” are the events that take place in Zembla now encompassing the present as mere reflections of their current world. In his novel, Pale Fire, Nabokov utilizes reflections, alter-egos, and historical references to represent the theme of how art mirrors reality.

To reference back to the land of Zembla, Nabokov uses aspects of Shades poem and the commentary to explore art as the reality of semblances. Shade introduces his poem with “a glass pane in which a mirrored sky, with its slightly darker tint and slower cloud, presents the illusion of continued space”. Shade writes of the glass pane and mirrored sky which metaphorically speak for a reflection of the land of Zembla. This is in relation to how Shades describes his furniture: his lamp, plate, chair, and bed supposedly hang above the snowy grass in the reflected sky. It creates the impression that Zembla is the alternate world of Shades almost coexisting in a separate universe. Zembla’s supposed existence is connected with the geographically skewed world of “Pale Fire”. In conjunction to the mirrored sky, Shade compares the reflection to “that crystal land” to which Kinbote believes is “an allusion to Zembla, his dear country”. Many crystals have several different meanings. Some represent purity, strength, power, regeneration, new beginnings, and cleansing. The “crystal land”, in relation to Zembla, symbolizes a different life. Perhaps Kinbote identifies his exile from Zembla with a fresh start; a rebirth where Zembla contains many aspects of the modern world. Zembla is derived from “sembla” in the word semblances. It is a land of close appearances of resemblers and events that happened to happen prior to the occurences in Shades world. Shades reality is an imitation of Zembla.

Nabokov includes doppelgangers to show how the art of Zembla’s world crosses over with the modern world. When King Charles of Zembla came across a lake, he bent his head to step down toward the water. In its limpid tintarron he saw his scarlet reflection but, oddly enough, owing to what seemed to be at first blush an optical illusion… it was accompanied by the ripple-warped reflection… his red-sweatered, red-capped doubleganger turned and vanished… whereon a counterfeit king had just stood.

Charles’s reflection in the water is a mirage, an unreal version of himself. Much like how some reflections of art are strange and out of the ordinary, his mirrored image in the water becomes a self-determining figure who drifts away. What Charles saw in his reflection was his alter ego, Kinbote, who exists in Shades world. In reference to art, the way it is perceived is illusory to life like how a mirror reflection shows objects reversed. Gradus, the assassin sent from Zembla, is ordered to kill the exiled King Charles of Zembla (later known as Kinbote). He locates where Kinbote is and heads toward his way. It is only by coincidence that Shade mentions him and is soon accidentally shot by him. In the poem “Pale Fire”, Kinbote supposes Shade’s description to the gradual transition from day to night as a reference to Gradus. Gradus’s character is paralleled in Shades world with the many names of “Jack Degree or Jacques de Grey, or James de Gray, and also appears in police records as Ravus, Ravenstone, and d’Argus”. His character identifying with similar named titles as well as included in police records show how Zembla’s universe intertwines with the events that take place in Shades world.

The title of the novel, Pale Fire, is a reflection of Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens symbolizing Kinbotes self-delusion. Kinbote recalls one of Shades poetic lines similar to the passage: “The sun is a thief: she lures the sea and robs it. The moon is a thief: he steals his silver light from the sun. The sea is a thief: it dissolves the moon”, which is paraphrased from Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens. The actual quote is formatted “The moon's an errant thief, And her pale fire she snatches from the sun”. These lines refer to how the moon emits no glow of its own. It only reflects the light of the sun. In a similar case, Kinbote, as the commentator, desires to gain literary spotlight that he draws from John Shade's poem. He is desperate for recognition. Kinbote’s appropriation of Shades thoughts is a form of his own self-delusionment. In deciphering a open-ended title for his poem, Shade writes: “Help me, Will. Pale Fire” wherein Kinbote views this as Shade’s attempt to “look for something that might use for a title. And the find was ‘pale fire’.... All he had with him was a tiny vest pocket edition of Timon of Athens”. Throughout the story, Kinbote convinces himself that he is revealing underlying significance in Shade’s poetry, but instead twirls around Shades intentions. Kinbote is a hoodwinked individual, not only in how he believes the poem is about him, but also how he interprets the events that led up to Shade’s death. Delving deeper into the commentary, the more Kinbote separates himself from the text, he loses sight of the present and fails to touch base with his own reality leading him to his own self-deception. He connects with Timon from Athens in that Timon believed that he had all the money in the world until he discovered he was bankrupt when he had to pay his debts after buying gifts for his friends. The reference to Shakespeare’s texts reflects the characteristics found in Kinbote.

In forcing a work of art into human framework, beings create a connection to artwork and how it reflects their lives. Every idea, every piece of art, is an appropriation of something else. Creativity relies on misreading art for an understanding of the world.